When hopes & dreams are shredded to pieces

Ajay Joshi

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, December 3

The relaxations in the lockdown brought cheers on the faces of jobless individuals, especially migrants, amid bad tidings due to the pandemic. Many have returned to the city in packed buses, with a glint of hope in their eyes. A sizeable number of such workers are presently out of job. And it has forced them to take up menial work.

Ankit Kumar (25), who used to work in a factory at Focal Point, says, his owner fired him from the work citing that he doesn’t have enough money to pay to more workers. “Our owner was happy when we came back from our native places after four months. My cousins and friends also came with me, hoping they would also get a job here.” However, within a month their dreams shattered and are now looking for hand to mouth work. Apparently, things went rough after the farmers in the state declared protests. “My supervisor told me that they were unable to bear expenses of the company and there was a shortage of raw materials. Subsequently nearly a dozen workers were laid off in two days. Therefore after losing my job I shifted to Maqsudan Sabzi Mandi and tried to make a fresh start. But still I’m trying to get some amount saved after a tiring day,” he adds.

Ankit lives here at a rented accommodation with two friends and tries to earn enough to arrange two-square meals. Having four years of experience in factories, he feels like a square peg in a round table at the vegetables market. Scratching his head while dealing with a customer, he says, “I am bad with numbers and forget the prices of the vegetables sometimes.” But nearby vendors are nice enough to come to his rescue. “I don’t know when the situation shall normalise and we will be able to send some money back home. There is no source of earning at our village and I am having the same feeling here,” he is a school dropout.

With no jobs in the offing, migrants are now homeless too. Having built temporary tents, on footpaths or any empty grounds, they spend days in an unhygienic space.